Take a look at our magazines from 1882 to 2013

We just launched Voice, our new magazine for supporters. If you haven't seen it, please take a look - it's a great piece of work, looking at young carers, stories by young people and volunteers, our policy work and celebrity chef Levi Roots.

Our back pages

1882

This is the cover of our first newsletter to our supporters, from nearly 132 years ago. The issue is dated 1 October 1882, when we were known as the Church of England Central Home for Waifs and Strays.

A recent award winning paper given by Claudia Soares (University of Manchester) about aspects of the history of The Children’s Society (formerly known as the Waifs and Strays Society in the Victorian and Edwardian eras) at the Voluntary Action History Society’s summer 2013 fifth international research conference, shows that The Children’s Society developed a positive approach to child care practice during this time.

By moving the focus of analysis away from a preoccupation with residential care reform and discipline, the paper argues that ideals of homeliness and friendship were at the heart of Waifs and Strays Society’s ideology. Drawing on a range of photographs, fundraising literature in monthly magazines, donation lists and inventories from The Children’s Society’s Archive, the paper examines how institutional space and material culture was shaped by a rhetoric of domesticity. Analysis of representations of leisure, play and celebrations within the institution further highlights the models of sociability that the Society promoted to shape interpersonal relationships amongst institutional residents. The full paper can be read here: http://www.vahs.org.uk/2013/09/feature-9/